Empower Wisconsin | Oct. 10, 2019
With so much anti-Israel sentiment — and outright anti-semitism — being preached from the Halls of Congress — is it any wonder such hateful ideology is rising on college campuses?
A new report by AMCHA Initiative claims incidents of anti-Israel bias on college campuses have spiked sharply, while classical acts of anti-Semitism have decreased significantly, according to Campus Reform.
Acts of bias include campaigns by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (BDS) movement so fashionable among the left. BDS, and anti-semitism in general, certainly is all the rage among members of “the Squad,” made up of identity politics practitioners, including U.S. reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and last but not least, Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)
Omar and Tlaib, as National Review has reported, have worked with a group known as Miftah, a nonprofit of “vicious anti-Semites.”
In July Omar and Tlaib were among 17 members of Congress who voted against a resolution condemning the BDS movement. Wisconsin U.S. reps. Mark Pocan (D-Madison) and Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) were among the ranks voting against the resolution. Despite claims that he does not support such boycotts, Pocan in 2017 reserved official Capitol Hill space for an anti-Israel forum organized by the BDS movement, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
Omar has been one of the most vocal supporters of the anti-Israel campaign.
The AMCHA (the Hebrew word meaning “your people”) Initiative report states that forms of anti-Israel bias increased by 70 percent in the most recent reporting year, while incidents of anti-Semitism decreased by 42 percent. Among the incidents that increased were harassment accusing pro-Israel students and Jews of supporting genocide, racism, and other evils, according to the report.
Student-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction incidents dropped between 2017 and 2018, according to the report, but BDS actions by faculty members of colleges and universities “more than doubled.” The report also claims that academic BDS, in fact, “incites” anti-Semitism on campus, with 86 percent of anti-Israel bias being linked to academic BDS.
According to the report, university departments hosting speakers that advocated for violence against Israel or its elimination nearly tripled.
“University administrators must recognize that BDS in general and an academic boycott of Israel in particular are tools of an intolerant ideology whose ultimate goal often results in the harassment of students,” the report states.
The AMCHA Initiative conducted the report using its Antisemitism Tracker to focus on anti-Semitic and anti-Israel incidents that occurred in 2017 and 2018.
Read more about the report at Campus Reform
